Tamil Worlds: The Politics of the Urban Poor in Postwar Colombo
Date: Tuesday March 4th, 2014
Place: Council Chambers (AA 160), 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Speaker: Jonathan Spencer, Professor of Anthropology of South Asia, University of Edinburgh
Comment: Rajyashree Reddy, Assistant Professor, Geography and Urban Planning, University of Toronto Scarborough
Reception: Ralph Campbell Lounge (BV 380), 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Details:
Professor Jonathan Spencer will visit UTSC on March 4th to discuss the political dynamics involved in revitalizing Colombo’s urban areas. He will explore the city’s town planning projects that are currently taking place under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence in historically dense and culturally and religiously mixed areas. These projects have called for the removal of “sub-standard” housing, the construction of leisure areas, and heavy controls on hawkers.
For over 30 years, Jonathan Spencer has carried out fieldwork in Sri Lanka, first focusing on local politics and rural development, with recent interests concentrating on ethnic conflict, political violence and non-violence in the country. He has published several works on Sri Lankan politics and the civil war, and has made noteworthy contributions to the history and theory of anthropology.
This event is part of a yearlong series on Tamil Worlds, presented by Tamil Worlds Initiative and the Department Historical and Cultural Studies of University of Toronto Scarborough.
Co-Sponsors: Centre for Ethnography, University of Toronto Scarborough
Previous Series on Tamil Worlds:
November 19th, 2013
Tamil Worlds: Religious Difference and the Making of the Modern “Tamil-Hindu”
Details: Scholars of religion met at UTSC to discuss the contested pasts of Modern Hinduism in South India, Sri Lanka and Toronto. The panel addressed questions such as the emergence of the “Tamil-Hindu” in modern times and its connection to Saivism and religious reform; the differences between thinking of a critical history of religious difference and thinking of a history celebrating religious diversity in postcolonial worlds; and examining history in the context of contemporary discussions about pluralism today.
Speakers: Srilata Raman, Associate Professor, Department of Religion, University of Toronto; Darshan Ambalavanar, Independent Scholar, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka; Sudharshan Durayappah, Lecturer, Global Asian Studies, University of Toronto
October 5th, 2013
“Writing Within/Writing Against: Subaltern Fiction and Poetry in Tamil”
Details: An informal discussion on Tamil fiction, poetry and cultural politics took place, examining the different ways authors have experimented with language and genre to recuperate histories and collectivities uncontained by national imaginaries. How have Muslims and Dalits written some of the most original fiction and poetry in Tamil while remaining overlooked by the Tamil literary world? The event was led by M. Kannan, from the Institute of French Studies in Pondicherry, India.